Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

opensignal.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 53 posts

Re: The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

#31

Post by bcohen5055 »

cryptoz wrote: post #21
dysfunction wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then that goes back to funkyy's point: there may be lots of unexpected things developers can do with it, but none of them so far are things customers care about. Atmospheric modeling? Really cool! Do customers care? Heck no.

They'll care when they get very high accuracy weather forecasts! New models will result in more accurate, more personalized and relevant forecasts that I think customers will love. This is a very tough problem that nobody has cracked yet, but it looks promising in the near future. We'll see.

But there is still the question of value proposition to the consumer.

Is the incrimental marginal cost of including the sensor low enough that the improvements in weather forcasting will be demananded by consumers?

I dont believe the target demographic of samsung is swayed towards their products by an additional 5 even 10 degrees of weather accuracy. But i have no data to back this up.

Re: The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

#32

Post by aw3c2 »

pkaye wrote: post #23
Artemis2 wrote: post #18

I love how developers of this app allow themselves to collect numerous data about their users' phones, so much they even track their hardware, model numbers and available APIs. But the worst thing is probably that this has became so common that people don't react negatively anymore towards that kind of privacy violation.

The whole point of that API is crowd source collection of data so everyone can benefit.

Sadly they are selling to the devil: http://opensignal.com/insights/

Re: The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

#34

Post by justin66 »

cryptoz wrote: post #21
dysfunction wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then that goes back to funkyy's point: there may be lots of unexpected things developers can do with it, but none of them so far are things customers care about. Atmospheric modeling? Really cool! Do customers care? Heck no.

They'll care when they get very high accuracy weather forecasts! New models will result in more accurate, more personalized and relevant forecasts that I think customers will love. This is a very tough problem that nobody has cracked yet, but it looks promising in the near future. We'll see.

Are there any papers on the topic of including this new data written by actual meteorologists?

Re: The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

#35

Post by cryptoz »

justin66 wrote: post #34
cryptoz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll care when they get very high accuracy weather forecasts! New models will result in more accurate, more personalized and relevant forecasts that I think customers will love. This is a very tough problem that nobody has cracked yet, but it looks promising in the near future. We'll see.

Are there any papers on the topic of including this new data written by actual meteorologists?

Yes, there are quite a few relevant papers. Here's a preliminary study from 2006 regarding weather forecasting using surface pressure measurements on the synoptic scale: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/BAMS-87-2-175

A number of papers have been published since as that work has continued. So we know that surface pressure data is useful on a large scale; is it useful on a micro- or mesoscale? A few researchers are actively writing and publishing papers on this topic. Cliff Mass at the University of Washington, along with his colleagues and students, are leading the charge.

https://ams.confex.com/ams/94Annual/webprogram/Paper236282.h...

Re: The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

#36

Post by [deleted] »

mrjatx wrote: post #29
Artemis2 wrote: post #18

I love how developers of this app allow themselves to collect numerous data about their users' phones, so much they even track their hardware, model numbers and available APIs. But the worst thing is probably that this has became so common that people don't react negatively anymore towards that kind of privacy violation.

Why do I care that a mobile developer knows my device model and hardware specs? I'd prefer you to know for bug testing and performance metrics.

[deleted]

Re: The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

#37

Post by return0 »

privong wrote: post #22
return0 wrote: post #17

Makes sense, after all temp sensors don't really belong to phones. What't the point of knowing it's 35C and the humidity of your pocket? They 'd make sense in cars, once (if ever) they get connected.

Weather signal [0] has developed algorithms to correct the internal sensor measurements for things like this, particularly temperature. So it's not entirely useless. [0] http://weathersignal.com/

That sounds like an overkill, in this case it's easier for your phone to get your ambient temperature from some wather server around the world.

Re: The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

#38

Post by taiki »

jug6ernaut wrote: post #2

Well that's disappointing. Adding gimmicky(imo) sensors and removing functional/useful sensors. Obviously Samsung is thinking from a consumer prospective, but still very disappointing.

Thinking from a consumer perspective, the temperature and humidity sensors aren't really useful. It's a phone, not a weather station.

I think though, this gets to the heart of the problem with Samsung. They throw a lot of shit at the wall with no care for design or even how the thing is supposed to be lived with.

(FWIW, I think LG, Nokia and HTC are doing decent work in mobile.)

Re: The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

#39

Post by scottcha »

MBCook wrote: post #11
jug6ernaut wrote: post #2

Well that's disappointing. Adding gimmicky(imo) sensors and removing functional/useful sensors. Obviously Samsung is thinking from a consumer prospective, but still very disappointing.

> and removing functional/useful sensors. Are temperature and humidity really that useful? I know many Android phones have had them, but have they really be used? Do they really add much to the device?

I believe temperature sensors are required to get barometric data to altitude[1]. That's why all altimeter watches also have temperature though its usually useless while wearing since its reading the temp of your wrist instead of the air.

On a second note I produce an app (http://www.ullrlabs.com) for avalanche danger evaluation and knowing your ambient air temperature is one factor which is helpful in that process. Though I haven't yet tried to read that value on android phones for the app.

[1]See pressure altimeter calibration equation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altimeter

Re: The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

#40

Post by npsimons »

dysfunction wrote: post #16
cryptoz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly correct! Google and Motorola put a barometer into the Xoom to test GPS altitude improvements, and it turned out that some developers (like me, and like the opensignal team) discovered that the sensor actually has world-changing potential in atmosphere modelling. Huge benefit from a simple sensor addition that didn't even really have a clear purpose at launch.

But then that goes back to funkyy's point: there may be lots of unexpected things developers can do with it, but none of them so far are things customers care about. Atmospheric modeling? Really cool! Do customers care? Heck no.

Customers are idiots. To wit:

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." -- Henry Ford

Post reply on HN